


Baby, you're like lightning in a bottle

by DryDreams



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Disassociation, Dubcon Kissing, F/F, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, battle of the entities (in melanie's brain), spiral fuckery, vague mention of voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:06:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DryDreams/pseuds/DryDreams
Summary: Melanie is not afraid, not really. She’s more concerned that if she tries to cut it, it will bleed glitter.
Relationships: Melanie King/Helen Richardson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 55
Collections: Femslash After Dark 2020





	Baby, you're like lightning in a bottle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vogelwrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogelwrites/gifts).



> Alternative title: no slaughter? no problem
> 
> Pronouns for Helen switch randomly between she and it

Melanie knows what it feels like when a yellow door shows up nearby. The air fizzes, faintly charged like there is a thunderstorm coming, only without the smell of ozone. Instead it’s a smell that makes you feel like you’re triggering a recollection, like you swear it reminds you of something… but no one can ever really connect to the memory. Because there is none.

At first, months back, Melanie had tried to place the smell, following the itch of trying to recall something that was just on the tip of her tongue to the point of frustration. Until she realized that it was just a red herring. A scent to throw off the scent. A dead end path.

Since then it just smells a bit like cotton candy.

She glances at the raised hairs on her arm and sighs. Her hand closes instinctively around the letter opener on the desk in front of her and she sits very still, tensing. Readying her action. “Hey, Helen.”

The lilting, wooden bird-call laugh comes from everywhere at once. “Melanie, I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced. But it seems my reputation precedes me. How _are_ you?”

“Generally not great, Helen, thanks for asking. What the fuck do you want?” Melanie pushes back her chair and turns. For a split second it appears as though the thing is directly behind her and she startles, jumping slightly and banging the chair against the desk. But when she blinks Helen is standing inside the doorway where Melanie expected her to be, leaning casually against the frame. Looking past her into the corridors makes Melanie feel like she’s trying to look into a microscope that won’t focus so she doesn’t, shaking her head slightly and focusing on Helen who is at least vaguely stationary.

The smile that splits the spiral’s face looks too wide, and out of the corners of Melanie’s eyes her hands look wrongly stretched, fingers horribly long and curling. But when she focuses on them they look normal, albeit a little fuzzy; the nails are painted—or maybe not painted— a baffling pearlescent that shimmers in light that has no discernible source. As she inspects one hand it lifts and she follows it as it curls demurely under Helen’s chin. When she raises her eyes from the hand to the face the fingers stretch again as they go out of focus, until the nails are no longer visible at all.

“Can’t I just say hello?” Helen chimes, and her eyes sparkle as she makes a show of pushing off the doorframe and stepping in Melanie’s direction. Cliche as it is, she reminds Melanie of a stalking cat. The click of her heels echoes on the wooden floor like it’s linoleum.

“I thought you couldn’t come out unless I opened the door.” Melanie says flatly as Helen stops at her feet, looming over her in a way that doesn’t seem possible in a room so small. Fingers twitching around the letter opener, Melanie doesn’t move, just stares up at the thing defiantly. She’s not afraid, not really. She’s more concerned that if she tries to cut it, it will bleed glitter.

“You’ve been assuming things, then.” Helen replies. Melanie blinks once, and it shouldn’t have been long enough for anything natural to move so far, but suddenly all she can see is two hall-of-mirror eyes inches from her own.

All Helen seems to have really done is bend down to her level, but Melanie startles and gasps sharply, her arm jerking out on instinct. She’s caught before her weapon can meet resistance; the hand that wraps around her wrist feels like quicksand. Melanie snaps, letting out a snarl as she tries to wrench herself free. “Get away from me,” she hisses.

When Helen releases her Melanie slams back in her chair with the force of her struggle like a snapped elastic. The brief thought that if Helen got any closer she’d be inside her flashes through Melanie’s mind with a spike of terror, but when she gets her bearings the thing has not moved other than to tuck her arm primly back behind her.

Breathing heavily now, Melanie glares through the curls that have fallen in her face. Helen watches her like she’s peering in through a store window and Melanie is something shiny that has caught her eye. “You never answered my question.” Melanie spits. Her fingers curl around nothing; her weapon has disappeared. _“What do you want?”_

To her utter horror, Helen straightens up and then promptly folds herself down into Melanie’s lap, draping arms that feel like bags of sand over her shoulders. Frozen with shock, Melanie just stares as that smile widens impossibly further.

“I hear you’re somewhat of a rabid dog, Miss King. Elias may find you useful that way, but I rather think it would be much nicer if someone tamed you.”

The implications of this run over Melanie like a spray of cold water, and her lips part in surprise. There’s no time whatsoever for her to protest before she is being kissed, in a way. There is certainly a plush mouth pressed against her own but it’s not like any kiss she’s ever had, it’s like licking a nine-volt and it whites out her vision; she swallows and there’s the distinct feeling of champagne fizzing its way down her throat.

A whimper escapes her but she doesn’t have the self awareness to be mortified, nor can she stop herself from arching into the sensation. The rage in her mind begins to dull, corralled into a corner by the kaleidoscope static that spreads through her brain like a drop of dye in water.

Then sharp fingertips scrape against the back of her scalp and curl in her hair, tugging sharply. They break apart with an audible smack as Melanie’s head snaps back and she cries out in pain. It feels as though someone unplugged her from an amp without turning it off; there’s a crackle and a pop and she’s left suddenly buzzing without any input, reeling and gasping for breath.

When the siren song of the slaughter swells back to its former volume, uninhibited, she feels it like a punch to the gut. She hasn’t been without it for so long, and its return shocks her with just how much it _hurts._ She’d almost forgotten that this isn’t _normal._

Her lip curls and she bucks, but Helen has her stuck fast. There’s the wet slide of a tongue against her throat and the scrape of teeth that feel as sharp as the fingertips had. When Helen murmurs against Melanie’s skin she feels it in her bones. “Come now, be a good pup. Let’s see if we can’t get that lovely brain of yours lost for a more sustainable amount of time, hm?”

Even amongst the blind fury Melanie feels a tug of hunger; she wants more than just a taste of whatever the fuck that was. She wants to remember what it is like to be docile, to lose herself in pleasure rather than pain. There’s not as much power behind her swing when she lashes out this time.

Helen easily catches her again, clicking her tongue in disapproval. This time she doesn’t let go, instead snatching up Melanie’s other wrist and forcing her arms up, crossing her wrists behind her head and holding them there.

They’re face to face again now, noses nearly brushing as Melanie twists and snarls. “Fuck you.” She tries for vehemence but it comes out embarrassingly breathless. A hand grips her jaw painful tight and holds her still, forces her to stare into those impossible eyes. She sees herself in them, for a moment, reflected over an unknowable amount of times.

Then Helen smiles and it all shifts into dizzying swirling colors. “Yes, you’ve got it!” She sounds like wind chimes and smells like wet blood and musty roses and when she claims Melanie’s mouth again, tongue sliding against her teeth, Melanie _drowns._

By the time Helen stops kissing her, she’s forgotten where she is. By the time she realizes she’s no longer being kissed Helen is lifting her like she’s nothing, and she doesn’t even have time to protest before she is deposited on the desk behind her, blinking baffled at the ceiling, her mouth tingling, her hands free. She flexes her fingers just to make sure they’re all still there and tips her chin down to look at Helen, who is significantly more inconceivable now that she’s a few feet away.

"Now what?" Melanie asks, and then promptly feels dumb about it but Helen is looking down at her like she isn't sure either. The question seems to spur her into motion, though, and as she places a hand on either side of Melanie's waist and leans over her, Melanie is starkly reminded of just what it is she's dealing with. The air around Helen fizzes with something that seems like static electricity but probably isn't, and the way its limbs move is all wrong, never quite the same shape as the last time Melanie looked. 

But one thing hasn't changed here and it's that Melanie isn't afraid of this thing, she won't be, and if she's going to do this, which apparently she is-- she's going to do this. So she reaches out. Helen raises one sharp eyebrow as Melanie's fingers brush against her cheek but she doesn't do anything to stop her, doesn't even appear to be celebrating her accomplishment of winning Melanie over. Just stays still, or as still as she can for something that never stops shifting, and lets Melanie touch. 

The spiral's skin feels like skin, and it doesn't. _Surprise, surprise,_ Melanie thinks, but then again, it sort of is. She had expected it to be uncannily inhuman, but it isn't uncanny at all. It's warm and soft, the way it should be... it just shifts under her fingers like sand. She almost expects it to part and let her through when she puts more pressure on it, but it doesn't yield. She vaguely wonders if anyone else has touched it like this.

When she looks back to Helen's eyes, they're focused downward, and when Melanie follows its gaze she realizes her skirt is hiked up messily. She sucks in a sharp breath and spreads her thighs slightly without even really thinking about it. Helen obviously takes this as an invitation, sliding those wrong hands up her thighs and pushing the skirt completely out of the way.

“These are flashy knickers to be wearing at work, darling.” It says, sliding a finger that looks just fine but feels like a weapon under the waistband of her panties. Melanie shivers.

“Th’ were expensive. Gotta wear them somewhere— _hey!”_ She exclaims as Helen tugs and somehow slices right through the fabric.

“Shh, you won’t even notice they’re gone,” it murmurs, pulling the ruined fabric away as it moves down her body. Melanie jerks as the hand brushes against her, a whimper escaping her mouth. She knows she’s embarrassingly wet. Anger begins to dance at the edges of her thoughts but she doesn’t chase it. She wonders just how long this freedom will last.

Then another thought enters her mind and she shivers immediately, almost with fear as she realizes. “Is your mouth— I— does it feel the same when you—“

The smile Helen gives her is positively wicked, and for the first time Melanie realizes there are far too many teeth. Then that tongue is lapping at her cunt, and she barely registers the knifepoint fingertips digging into her thighs because it’s like she’s touched a live wire, the ache of pleasure spreading like fire through her gut and blooming in her chest; her back arches and she screams as she comes, faster than she ever has in her life.

For a brief moment the fear persists even through the arousal as it continues to shudder through her; she can’t _take too much more of this,_ it’s going to _break her—_

But she is spared; right when she feels like she might pass out the sharp peak drops off, rolling into gentle waves of pleasure that give her room to breathe. She’s aware of the soft mouth working cleverly at her again, and the tears wetting her cheeks, and for a short while she can almost pretend this is normal— albeit the best normal she’s ever had. Then the tide swells and she’s spinning, clawing at the desk as she writhes and comes again.

Melanie has no idea how many times Helen lets her fall over the edge. Somehow it never gets to be too much, never crosses that delicate line into pain. When it finally ends it doesn't stop all at once, instead she gradually comes down like a tub emptying down a drain, every wave of pleasure more gentle than the last. Until at last she's lying on a desk in a room again, feeling her heart throbbing in her ears and her cunt and her fingers and everywhere else. Almost like normal. Except not at all. 

She wonders how much time she's lost as an almost-perfectly-normal tongue laps at her throat and only-a-little-bit-electric lips press a kiss under her jaw. She searches her mind for the violence but she cannot find it, not even a hint. It’s got to be a trick, somehow; the spiral only deals in those— but it’s an effective one. 

There’s a puff of remarkably human breath on her cheek as Helen speaks, voice still somehow coming from everywhere even when it is right by her ear. “How are we feeling, lovely?” 

Melanie shifts, feeling like she should sit up but the moment she tries to move her arms she realizes that’s not going to happen any time soon. “Mm. I feel right fucked, Helen.” She says instead, knowing that her agreeable mood is speaking much louder than her words can. “Would you mind pulling my skirt down for me?”

Helen obliges and then perches on the desk beside her, which is vaguely unsettling because it puts her entirely in the corner of Melanie’s vision, flickering there like a hologram. Melanie feels very sticky but she relaxes, focusing on moving her feet back and forth as much as she can manage, knocking her heels against the desk drawers. “Why’d you do this?” She asks after a long moment. “Do you want something from me?”

“I won’t say no to an owed favor,” Helen purrs. 

Melanie laughs sharply. _”Hell_ no. New question, how did you know it would work?”

“I never kiss and tell.”

“So it’s all riddles now, huh?”

“It always was, dearest.” 

“Right. Is it going to stay like this? Am I… you didn’t drag me straight from one hell into another, did you? Am I going to wake up like you tomorrow? One fucks their way into the spiral?”

“That’s a decision you’d have to make for yourself. I have simply offered you the opportunity to choose. Though, with the amount of prying you’re doing, you might be right where you belong here.”

Melanie frowns and turns her head away as something unpleasant stirs in her gut, a well-loved vision of her hands around Elias’s scrawny throat flashing through her mind. “Right.” She says flatly. “Sure.” 

Helen leans down to press a numbing kiss to Melanie’s temple, smoothing out the wrinkle of irritation. “You’re more important than you realize, Melanie King. I look forward to seeing what becomes of you. Feel free to call if you ever need me again.” 

Melanie doesn’t respond, staring at the spindly shadow on the wall across from them as it twists and lengthens to its full and horrible height. There’s no click of heels this time as Helen moves away— no footsteps at all as the air in the room begins to still. Just the click of a door closing, and then Melanie is as alone as she was before. That is to say, not at all, as the suspiciously ocular whorls in the wood of the bookshelves peer in her direction. Scowling, she tugs a page of the now vaguely damp statement she’d been reading out from under her and crumples it in her fist. “Fuck. off.”

**Author's Note:**

> Highly recommend listening to this ethereal cover of Electric Love while you read this fic https://open.spotify.com/track/03PUBv4bpD7wuL1k4VRSHm?si=FfxSH6noQ-iOuuXqTBubWA
> 
> HOPE YOU LIKED IT !!! <3


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